That is a shame,. im not a member of that forum other wise i would have offered a suggestion..
If they are worried about server load, the solution is simple..
Use a separate system, which nightly or each 24 hours, creates a duplicate of the current database.. (off the main servers) and then allow systems such as this to access the second server, Yeah the results would be 24 hours old, but its better than nothing.. You could use api commands yourself to keep track of new members/followers.
This would result in only one request per day going to the main database.. so not as much server load. FOr the moment that is not an issue as im just starting out. but later this could be a major pain.